Tasha Dhanraj envisages her college reunion

I went to a BBQ at my uncle’s house with his best university friends. It had been 20 years since they had all left uni and just for today they had gathered in the small village of Ditchling to reminisce and celebrate my uncle’s birthday. Of course, it wasn’t just the original gang that were there. They had all come with their children and partners. I wondered how strange it must have been for all of them whose most distinct memories of each other would have been as lefty students lounging about the university fields to suddenly find themselves looking at each other; grown up, settled down and most shocking of all – reproducing.

At my age, the concept of meeting up with old college friends in 20 years’ time is ridiculous. For now, the only thing I can feel nostalgic about is Winnie The Pooh. And yet, like a mirror into my own future, I was faced with the inevitability that one day my friends will be adults with jobs and responsibility.

“We should get to redefine what adulthood means”

Forget climate change and nuclear war. Nothing is more terrifying than the thought that the boy who forgot his homework every day for a year and the girl who accidentally came to college with a hangover because she didn’t realise that wine was not meant to be drunk from a pint glass (fine, I’ll admit that was me) would one day be paying taxes and given the hideous challenge of spawning the next generation of humanity.

Grandparents and parents always go on about how quickly time flies and how it feels like only yesterday they were skipping through the grass collecting dandelions. Today has been one of the first times that this notion has actually hit home.

How soon is it until I am surrounded by my old friends at a 20-year reunion and we are chortling about that one time when one person we sort of knew got really drunk and fell into a pond, while exchanging sombre glances at each other and wondering when was the last time we had that little to care about? Of course, that awkward silence would soon be literally broken by one of our offspring actually breaking something.

I’m not sure if I would be happy if all of us had conformed to tradition in that way as I can’t imagine so many of my friends being like that. Part of rising to the challenge of adulthood should mean we get to redefine what adulthood means.